Yuri Vendik diagnoses Russia with Soviet nostalgia

Photo: Mihkel Maripuu

In an interview, Postimees opinion leader of the year journalist Yuri Vendik uncovers an attitude he often encounters in Russia: the states around it are not states, really.

Yuri (Jüri) Vendik works as correspondent for BBC Russian service, his daily-work related stories published over BBC Russian language portal. For Postimees, he has written meaty columns from Moscow for these past 2.5 years, on what’s happening in Russia and Ukraine.

How long have you been working in Moscow now as journalist?

I went there as BNS correspondent in July 1998 so it will be 17 years soon. Actually, I did study in Moscow before that and worked at BNS even then, as its ninth employee – in 1990–1993. Then I came to Estonia and worked here for a while.

For BBC I have worked for 13 years, all of them in Moscow. Actually, BBC has its Russian service both in Moscow and in London.

Meanwhile you have still maintained connections with Estonian media, you’ve written for papers like Maaleht, Postimees…

Truth be told, I started writing these opinion articles for purely personal, actually family reasons – I needed to earn extra money. Which will not mean I’d write just anything for money. I write what I know and what I think. I want to pass on to people my knowledge of Russia, and, during the past year, of Ukraine also.

As a journalist, my first job was at Molodezh Estonii, as a school boy and university student. Then there were BNS, Delovoi Vedomosti – the Russian language Äripäev, Den za Dnyom for a while.

Is your mother tongue Estonian or Russian?

Russian. For BBC I also write in Russian, for Postimees in Estonian. I make mistakes of course and you are having to correct these.

Actually you make almost no mistakes at all. There’s always so little need to correct and edit you.  

Nice to hear that, of course. At times, I need to do things in English for BBC on the air. That’s when you are in some hot spot and you’re the only BBC correspondent there and English speaking colleagues are not around. But mainly, yes, I have worked in Russian my whole life long.

The readers have taken note that it used to be Yuri Maloveryan writing for us and BBC, but for a while now it has been Jüri Vendik. Why the name change?

I assume people think I did it to be more of an Estonian that I am. No, not at all. I had purely personal reasons. My grandma was Salme Vendik. Several years ago I decided that after she dies, I’d take her name as my journalist name, just to remember her. So that’s what I did. But in my passport, I’m still Maloverjan. There are the people who have always known me and they do find it funny of course, reading over the BBC about some Mr Vendik writing... who’s that? But it has no serious consequences.

How is it to be a BBC journalist in Moscow these days?

We are not persecuted yet. It’s totally normal work; for instance, the living/working conditions are much better for foreign journalists than the local Russian ones at the local publications. When it comes to content, local powers cannot put pressure on us, and if at all they do it is through new laws only.

We did close the radio channel four years ago already, by then it did not make much sense anymore – only medium wavelength, almost no listeners. But over the web, the Russian language BBC is very popular, millions of readers. I dare say we have one of the most popular Russian language social-political sites. For the very reason that those up to now most popular, lenta.ru and gazeta.ru – they were not closed down but they are now inclined towards the authorities, putting it mildly. Probably, part of their readership has now come over to us.

The former Lenta team has started a new site Meduza, that’s also Slon and Rosbalt, which is quite a quality edition at the moment. So the choice is there, it’s not that all has been closed down.

You do work in Moscow, but can BBC send you anywhere in Russia or Ukraine where something is happening at the moment? To a Mr Navalny court session in Kirov, or watch a «humanitarian convoy» at Ukrainian border?

Yes, sure, we are quite often sent out, especially so this last year. In Maidan, I worked for 35 days all in all. We take shifts going to Ukraine, the English language service people are going as well. For the most part, I know in advance. Like this Thursday, again, I go from Moscow to Ukraine.

A year ago, almost to the day, I was at the Russian foreign ministry house at Spiridonovka where they were signing the Estonia-Russia border treaty. As we journalists were sitting there, already it started to come into the telephones that in «it got tough» in Kiev. I didn’t even know if I’d manage to write the news about the treaty being signed – so promptly I was having to fly to Kiev. I did manage a short text, though.

What is the attitude of all kinds of Russian officials and sources when you want to ask them something for a Western channel?

That has always caused difficulty. Not that I work for BBC, but in Russia the custom is having their «own» journalists, «own» publications that keep constant contact. These are the ones who get the information. But if all you are is just a journalist, whatever the publication, and you call asking for a comment from a high ranking official, then things are different. Not like in Estonia – I do not know about now, but while at BNS and Äripäev in the 1990ies, you could simply call the ministers over the mobile phone.

Are people in Russia satisfied with the policy that we need to occupy new territories? Meanwhile, there’s such need to build up Russia as it is, everywhere?

Oh we could talk about that for a long time ... The Soviet nostalgia crops up, you know, the humiliation complex. I have always seen and encountered this attitude in Russia that the surrounding states are not really states somehow. Lots and lots of people support what happened in Georgia, what is currently happening in Ukraine. This is not a recent phenomenon.

Impossible, I’d guess, to build this attitude on nothing?

The majority of Russians who are currently supporting this whole thing are not thinking about taking new territory. In their own minds, they are thinking about justice – it would be justice for Russia to again rule over these territories, one way or another.

TV does tell them that everything is okay in the country and the economy prospers. At the moment, times are tough because of the sanctions, but otherwise all would be okay.

Meanwhile, there are countries of all kinds of sizes in Europe where people are not excited about such topics, firstly thinking about their own economic wellbeing, their own family and getting on with life. It is not related at all to how large the country they dwell in.

In Europe it’s different – in Europe, the borders have been taken down, Europe has united and is creating this meta-state. In Russia, however, this is not working; as we now see, not even with Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Are the Russian people not worried that the conflict with Ukraine might lead to a sharp conflict with the Western world – till the weapons come into play?

As we see on opinion polls right now, war with Ukraine is not supported. These Donbas people who voted in May, and the Crimea people, they thought it would just be a divorce. That Ukraine isn’t really a state, all will go peacefully. They did not want war you know. Of course the people fear a conflict with the West – first and foremost, the ones who can well imagine what that would mean for Russia. But even then, their sense of justice, the understanding they have of justice always prevails.

The sense that Russia is treated unjustly? That Russia got back the Crimea which belonged to them, крымнаш etc?

Yes, and that it is being punished for that – which is unjust.

What do you predict, where will it go from here?

The feeling is very gloomy, but there’s nothing I know to predict.

You have written a lot about court cases in Russia, like recently the case of Svetlana Davydova – a mother of seven – who is being accused in treason for calling the Ukrainian embassy and telling them of overhearing soldiers saying in the bus that they are being «sent out». The Alexei Navalny case etc. What do you think of the system? 

It has always left me with a very bad impression. I have covered the Russian court cases for a very long time, including the smaller things with opposition figures accused. With cases like these, it was always plain that all had been pre-decided and that the judge did not want to hear anything. Though he pretended to be listening. But there was no administration of justice whatsoever. These smaller cases mainly concerned opposition meetings were people were arrested.

There was this exception once of court action by Ramzan Kadyrov against the society Memorial leader Oleg Orlov, the latter being acquitted. But otherwise, almost all such cases are predetermined.

Has the opposition in Russia been totally neutralised at the moment?

Yes, feels like that. I’d rather counter that by asking: is there any reason to believe the systemic opposition being against the power? The real opposition is doing rather badly at the moment. I felt maybe the so-called civilised nationalists would come to amount to something, those who at least tried to be right wing the European way, but over this past half yea all these topics have passed through the news and nobody takes an interest.

What is your next story for Postimees going to be about? 

Don’t know. I did think I’d need to write this week, but I will have to go to Kiev, Ukraine now and I will probably not have the time while there. But I will surely write.